Teleportation, cyborgs and the posthuman ideology

This paper is concerned with a set of phenomena that lies at the intersection of popular culture, genetics, cybertechnology, nanotechnology, biotechnology and other advanced technologies, bio-ethics, science speculation, science fiction, mythology, the New Age Movement, cults, commerce and globalization. At the centre is a radical technophilia that finds representative expression in posthumanism, an Internet-based social movement driven by an extreme scientific utopianism. This set of phenomena constitutes an articulated cultural response to a number of underlying economic, technological and social dynamics that are together transforming the world, and particularly developed societies as they are incorporated into a global system of 'digital capitalism'. This paper first describes posthumanism and transhumanism. It then explores two key notions, teleportation and cyborgs, that receive extensive attention in mainstream media and serve as exemplars of this scientistic ideology, locating them both in cultural history and contemporary popular culture. The paper argues that posthumanism and associated phenomena are best seen as an ideological interpellation of humanity into an increasingly dominant scientific and technological order based on the cultural and scientific ascendancy of the 'Informational Paradigm' identified by Katherine Hayles in her inquiry into 'How we became posthuman'

Global and Jihad and the Battle for the Soul of Islam

The violence of the present global crisis tends to obscure another battle that is presently underway within Islam, one "for the soul of the world's Muslims" (Schwartz, 2002:163). While the primary focus of much current research concerns the threat of the Islamist call to 'Global Jihad', these movements are also seeking to impose a purified Islam universally across the Muslim world. They are targeting popular forms of Islam, Sufi mysticism, and the many diverse forms of traditional Islam that have existed for centuries across the globe. Given the significance of these religious phenomena, and especially Sufism, this is a battle with major implications for the future of Islam and the religious history of the world. This paper describes and assesses this situation and identifies some implications for the contemporary study of Islam

Globalization, Neo-Humanism and Religious Diversity

This paper proposes that the challenge of religious diversity must be seen in terms of globalization and the emergence of the postmetaphysical challenge within the crisis of humanist culture of the West. After outlining the dynamics of globalization and their implications for understanding cultural and religious diversity, the paper outlines the weaknesses of the dominant approach to religious diversity and sketches a new postmetaphysical perspective. This approach has two components: (1) a deconstructive stream, which emphasizes difference and deferral as disruptive forces in the ongoing discourse on diversity and the construction of religious identities; and, (2) the paradigm of desire, which emphasizes the dimensions of corporeality, desire and transgression in religious commitment. Overall, the postmetaphysical perspective suggests that religious diversity may best be comprehended via the encounter of religions in the here-and-now of concrete life-world situations. This reorientation can be conceptualized in terms of a shift from an ontotheological perspective to an ethical one

Foucault, Religion and Governmentality

Michel Foucault's analysis of governmentality and biopolitics has had a major impact on current theories of the state and public policy, especially in areas relating to corporeality, the body and the self (Gordon and Miller 1991; Ransom 1997; Moss 1998). This essay discusses these concepts in the context of Foucault's later work on religion, showing how vital this work was for this type of analysis. It proceeds by reviewing some notable recent contributions to the understanding of Foucault and religion, noting their strengths but also seeking to redress a subtle bias in their work towards an over-emphasis of the social constructionist and discourse-analytic reading of Foucault's position. An alternative reading is offered that foregrounds the notion of 'limit experiences' in this area of Foucault's work and stresses the scope and power of his critique of the role religion plays in the emergence of contemporary forms of governmentality. It develops this argument in connection with a consideration of Foucault's unpublished fourth volume of his History of Sexuality, 'Confessions of the Flesh', and a review of relevant Foucaultian concepts

Reflexive Spirituality and Metanoia in High Modernity

This paper explores a significant recent departure in the sociology of religion, the theory of 'reflexive spirituality'. This notion addresses problems of meaninglessness arising from the domination of rationality in modern society, where overarching systems of belief are fractured and fundamental trust and a sense of ontological security are threatened. Reflexive spirituality is a suggestive and fertile conception that suggests many avenues of analysis into contemporary spirituality. However, it also has weaknesses, which this paper addresses, principally by introducing the notion of metanoia and emphasizing the crucial role that it has to play in spiritual experience and the implications this has for the expert-systems within which religion and spirituality are increasingly appropriated in high modernity

Traditionalism in Australia: An Overview

This article provides an overview of the history of Traditionalism in Australia over the past 50 years, outlining its principle teachings, identifying and discussing key figures and their work and concluding with an assessment of the implications for Traditionalism of globalisation and the rise of the Internet, on which it has a significant presence

Assumption without representation: the unacknowledged abstraction from communities and social goods

We have not clearly acknowledged the abstraction from unpriceable “social goods” (derived from communities) which, different from private and public goods, simply disappear if it is attempted to market them. Separability from markets and economics has not been argued, much less established. Acknowledging communities would reinforce rather than undermine them, and thus facilitate the production of social goods. But it would also help economics by facilitating our understanding of – and response to – financial crises as well as environmental destruction and many social problems, and by reducing the alienation from economics often felt by students and the public

Jouissance-'right off the scale': Lacan, sexual difference and the phallic order

This essay explores Lacan's analysis of sexual difference within the phallic economy as a case study in intellectual history, interpreting Lacan's work in this area as a major theoretical achievement accomplished by three critical innovations: first, Lacan radicalises two central streams of twentieth-century thought - psychoanalysis and structuralism; second, he recontextualises these within a similarly radicalised version of Hegelianism; finally, Lacan completes this reconceptualisation by contributing a set of key notions of his own that, together with the other elements, form the organising principles around which his theory operates. It defends Lacan from charges of phallocentrism and also shows that, while Lacan is aligned closely with structuralism, his theory derives much of its dynamism from the neo-Hegelianism of Alexandre Kojegraveve and other sources

Death, the Abyss and the Real

Death is as much a part of the human condition as desire. Its study can be understood- as Freud himself did as the necessary obverse of the psychoanalytic concern with eros. While a sombre topic, it is unavoidable if we are fully to comprehend the human condition and contribute to the traditional psychoanalytic mission of easing human suffering. This paper, which focuses on death in the through of Jacque Lacan, is derived from a larger research programme developing a critical theory of death in contemporary society, and lies in some continuity with Freud (1930[1985]), Marcuse (1969), Brown (1970) and Becker (1973), all of whom sought in their different ways to analyze the phenomenon of death in contemporary civilization within a broad psychoanalytical framework